tilde

/ˈtɪldə/noun
Middle School
1

In Spanish, ⟨ñ⟩ is a palatalized ⟨n⟩, for example in ⟨cañón⟩.

2

In Portuguese, ⟨ã⟩ and ⟨õ⟩ are nasalized vowels, for example in ⟨canção⟩.

3

Another name for the Vietnamese tone mark dấu ngã, which is placed above a vowel to indicate a creaky rising tone (thanh ngã).

4

Another name for apex, a curved diacritic used in the 17th century to mark final nasalization in the early Vietnamese alphabet. It was an adoption of the Portuguese tilde.

5

A symbol ⟨~⟩, with various names and uses, also known as swung dash or wave dash. In the computer industry, various other names may be used, such as squiggle and twiddle.

6

The character encoded as decimal 126 in the 1967 ASCII character set, and later in the 1992 Unicode character set.

7

A punctuation mark that indicates range (from a number to another number). This use is common in Asia, where the symbol in this case is also called a wave dash.

8

In lexicography, the ⟨~⟩ symbol is used used to indicate the repetition of the topical word or item. In this case, the symbol is also called a swung dash.

9

May be used to represent approximation, in English prose and in mathematics. For example, “My dog weighs ~30 pounds.”

10

An alternate form of the logical negation operator, which is usually written as ¬.

Sound Patterns & Rhymes

Rhymes

Words that share the same ending sound pattern

Alliteration

Words starting with the same consonant sound — used in poetry and prose to create rhythm, emphasis, and memorable phrasing (e.g. “Peter Piper picked”)

Assonance

Words sharing similar vowel sounds regardless of starting letter — creates internal melody in writing

Consonance

Words sharing similar consonant sound patterns — adds texture and cohesion to writing